Today's guests:

The American Council of Technology and Industry Advisory Council has a new strategic plan with four main priorities. Rick Holgate, ATF chief information officer, and Jim Williams, the new head of IAC, spoke with Francis Rose about what they hope to accomplish during their tenure. Both say ACT-IAC is doing something it's never done before.

Transformation of a Federal bureau results in the transformation of a medical specialty. Principal Deputy Director at the National Institutes of Health Larry Tabak says the National Institute on Drug Abuse has evolved into a neuroscience institute. He credits Dr. Nora Volkow, the institute's director. She's a finalist for the Science and Environment category in this year's Service to America medals.

The National Security Agency is reducing the number of people who have access to sensitive information, and they're doing it by cutting the number of system administrators by 90 percent. That's the job Edward Snowden held before he went to the private sector and then revealed government secrets. Richard Stiennon, chief research analyst at IT Harvest, is also a senior fellow at the International Cybersecurity Dialogue.

You're probably used to hearing horror stories about big acquisitions in the federal government, but finding the good news is not as hard as you might think. Donald Geiss, director of the Ordnance Technology Consortium at the Defense Department, wrote about successful defense acquisitions.

The landscape of TRICARE Prime services is changing. DoD is reducing the number of service areas starting Oct. 1. Mary Kaye Justis, chief of health plan integration and assistant deputy director of the TRICARE Management Activity, explains what prompted the reductions in PRIME service areas.

Many rural communities are stuck in slow motion in the area of electronic communication. Through the Smart Rural Communities Initiative, federal agencies, in addition to state and local stakeholders, are bringing broadband infrastructure to those areas. Doug O'Brian, acting undersecretary of rural development at the Agriculture Department, explains the initiative to Federal News Radio's Lauren Larson.